Dont beleive this!!!

[EAD063]

Also I want to add... when you read published papers, to be published, the author needs 5 years of biological eduaction, and then also a Ph. D. While there are always quacks out there, typically you rely on other knowledeable people to detail wether a source is credible or not. Most every resource we use here has been heavily scrutnized by the proper individuals and then peer review by many others as the information makes its way down the ladder. You need to remember that everywhere you find information, if your searching for it, then the person who wrote it is more intelligent on that subjet than yourself therefore you'd be a hippocrite telling someone they don't know what they're talking about, when you yourself in fact do know either.

 

[Joodafoo]

If this guy doesn't have enough respect to be courteous to the people who are trying to help him, then he doesn't deserve the respect of having his questions answered. Simple as that.

Plus if you don't trust the internet, then go read a book smart one.

 

[Jaffster]

I'm sorry for swearing. Please forgive me x x x x x

But those were the actual words babbelfish gave me! Seriously!

 

[Zope]

I think it's just more of a respect thing. If I'm going to come here and ask you all questions, then I think I can spare the 30 seconds or so to make my message to you easily readable. It's also like how you would speak to your parents and how you would speak to your friends. You normally would speak to your parents with more respect such as cleaning up your language.

So in retrospect it would help to conduct your online typing habits in a manner where you recognize your type of audience and respect them.

 

[cacoseraph]

Also I want to add... when you read published papers, to be published, the author needs 5 years of biological eduaction, and then also a Ph. D. While there are always quacks out there, typically you rely on other knowledeable people to detail wether a source is credible or not. Most every resource we use here has been heavily scrutnized by the proper individuals and then peer review by many others as the information makes its way down the ladder. You need to remember that everywhere you find information, if your searching for it, then the person who wrote it is more intelligent on that subjet than yourself therefore you'd be a hippocrite telling someone they don't know what they're talking about, when you yourself in fact do know either.

er, that might be the standard for one journal or something in particular... but in no way is that a requirement for a lot of published works. in fact, part of the beauty of this hobby is that if you are good and smart enough you get papers published while having NO degrees

 

[JungleGuts]

Looks like hes beed taken our advice by lookin at his recent threads.

 

[DrGigglez666]

Thanks guys

Hey guys just wanted to say thanks for the advice and sorry about my comments and bad mouth i took it to far i guess!!!! But im actually going to start typing where yall can read it and understand it!! Thanks everyone and for all the advice even i can understand myself better haha!!!

 

[EAD063]

er, that might be the standard for one journal or something in particular... but in no way is that a requirement for a lot of published works. in fact, part of the beauty of this hobby is that if you are good and smart enough you get papers published while having NO degrees

I don't think the Journal of Arachnology or any other like association will accept it unless you have a Ph D., which is why many publications have there own ways of distributing they're material. But I doubt that any new species descriptions will come from an average hobbiest, which is the direction of the question. But you are correct, some of the members of AB and the likes have authored some very useful resource and we are fortunate to have the internet to transmit such useful information.

 

[skinheaddave]

I don't think the Journal of Arachnology or any other like association will accept it unless you have a Ph D.,

Not at ALL true. In fact, a reasonable number of the papers in every issue of the JofA are the works of master's students. Since arachnology is such a limited field with respect to funding, a good bunch of the work is done by graduate students before they have to worry so much about those concerns.

A lesser, but not insignificant, number of works are from undergrads. Perhaps equal in number (just a guess) are the papers by those without degrees or those with degrees but working outside of an institutional framework.

The key is not the credentials of the authors but the credentials of the reviewers. All articles submitted to peer reviewed journals are ... well, reviewed by peers. While I am sure there are exceptions, you would be hard pressed to find someone on the editorial board of a peer reviewed journal without substantial letters behind their names. These people are responsible for weeding out the weak to crappy articles and allowing only those that meet a standard of scientific rigor found acceptable by the journal.

Now, as for the field of scorpion taxonomy, it is true that relatively few species are described by people outside of an institutional framework. As an outsider it is quite an uphill battle to gain access to type material etc. A species description without examination of type (or closest available) material is considered speculative by some and outright wrong by others. If you do want to survive and thrive in an institutional environment (university, museum etc.) then you pretty much have to get a PhD at some point. Still, there are plenty of examples out there of species described by anything-but-average hobbyists and those in an institutional framework who have not yet gotten a PhD, either because they are still on their way or because they haven't bothered.

When I did my undergraduate thesis, some of my peers were doing more taxonomically oriented work (with diptera, mostly) and their works resulted in species descriptions. While these people went on to do master's (to the best of my knowledge) they were still undergrads at the time.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[rebirthflame]

Hey guys just wanted to say thanks for the advice and sorry about my comments and bad mouth i took it to far i guess!!!! But im actually going to start typing where yall can read it and understand it!! Thanks everyone and for all the advice even i can understand myself better haha!!!

much better